Chapter 8

Charles and Connie were sitting in Charles' living room having a drink of water. Connie was still pale and Charles still felt a little queasy. They had walked home together from the school. During that time, they had said nothing to each other. Their thoughts stayed their own, and as they walked, they ignored anything that was out of the ordinary. Their minds weren't ready to think beyond what they had just experienced.

When they had got to Charles' house, they had found Charles' mother and sister busy cleaning the place. Windows were opened to air out the place and his mother was washing the floors. While she was doing that, Melissa was hanging a load of laundry on the clothes line. Charles put an end to that. It was a distraction that they didn't need at that moment.

Now Charles' mother and sister were sitting across from Connie and Charles, staring blank faced into space, silently waiting to be given an order. Their bodies were rigid and lifeless.

"That was horrible!" Connie stated bluntly, as she put her empty glass down upon the coffee table.

"Yeah," Charles acknowledged with a murmur.

"The bastard deserved to die ... but," Connie stammered, "that was just horrible!"

Connie shook her head mournfully and then she started to cry. Charles sat there and let her. For the next few minutes there was only the sound of weeping.

Finally, after wiping her nose and pulling herself together, Connie spoke.

"So what do we do now?" Connie inquired gazing over at Charles through reddened, blurry eyes.

"I ... don't know," Charles said absentmindedly.

"We need to do something" Connie said desperately. "We can't live in a world filled with drones."

"Tell me about it," Charles replied, nodding his head in concurrence. "We certainly can't live like this."

With that, Charles gazed over at his mother and sister. Connie followed his gaze.

"What do you want to do?" Connie asked after a moment of silence.

"I was serious when I told Clyde about the nuclear reactors and stuff like that," Charles said, not taking his eyes off his mother and sister. "There is a ton of things that go on day to day that we take for granted. Have you ever watched one of those 'end of the world' series?"

"No," Connie replied softly, "I'm not into that kind of stuff."

"Well, I have," stated Charles, letting out a heavy sigh before going on, "and I can tell you one thing: while there are a lot of failsafe devices out there protecting the world from destruction and most of them work just fine when an emergency occurs, they still need humans to monitor them and to fix them if things go wrong. If people don't react to a situation, then eventually the failsafe device breaks and then things go from bad to worse. That's what I'm thinking about right now, that and what is going on around the world as we sit here. Clyde called himself the 'Master of Earth' and he claimed that he had taken control of everyone on Earth, not just our town. In that case, there are people walking around naked in some inhospitable locations. True we're in springtime here, but what about the people living in Alaska or Siberia. Are there people out there freezing to death because nobody has the brains to get dressed?"

"So," asked Connie in a serious tone, "what do you want to do?"

"I want to use my mom and sister as test subjects," Charles said, glancing over at Connie. "I want to try and get them to behave normally, before we try and mess with the rest of the world."

"Sounds logical," Connie acknowledged, nodding her head as she spoke, "and how do you plan to proceed?"

"When we were being shot at," Charles stated, "we both screamed for the cops to stop firing. I didn't feel any pain."

"Now that you mention it," murmured Connie thoughtfully, "I didn't either!"

"I don't know whether it was because we were touching each other or," said Charles, "because we spoke our commands simultaneously. Whatever the reason, neither of us felt pain. I'd like the two of us to work together and command my mother to behave normally. It might work."

"It might," Connie replied slowly, "but the question is what is 'normal'? Can telling someone to behave normally, make them normal again?"

"We won't know until we try," answered Charles.

"True," nodded Connie thoughtfully. Then she sighed. "I'm ready when you are."

"All right then," stated Charles, "My mother's name is Caroline. We should use that when we command her. What I want to do is hold hands, you and me. Then we will both think the command at the same time. Hopefully it will work."

"And what do you want to try as a command?" asked Connie.

"I want us to say, 'Caroline ... you are no longer a slave of the Master of Earth," Charles stated slowly, looking at Connie as he spoke the words. "You are free of the commands of the Master of Earth. Remember who you are and be free to do as you will."

"That's a lot," said Connie thoughtfully; "maybe we should write it down and read it off together. I think that would work better. We need to say the same thing without screwing it up."

"Okay we'll try it your way," agreed Charles with a nod. "I'll go and get a pen and paper and write it down for us."

Charles hurried out of the room and headed up to his bedroom. It took only a minute or two for Charles to find a pad of paper and a pen. Then it took another minute for him to write down the command. Connie waited patiently for his return.

"Okay then," Charles said on his return. "Are you ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," replied Connie, sighing heavily as she spoke. "Let's get this over with."